Now Playing: Stone in Love by Journey
Topic: Rambling on
I actually acomplished somethings during these days off! Some weeks by noon on Thursday I feel like I've done nothing but dishes & laundry that I can point to as acomplishments from my days off. This week, we got pumpkins, I have new spring bulbs to plant & I put insulation behind my bathtub to try to keep the bathroom warmer this winter (of course I haven't gone to the basement to staple more insulation up beneath the bathroom where it all fell down last winter nor have I stapled any in the garage where a couple of the walls are still bare) But I did the bathroom, I also did a ton of laundry, cooked a nice meal last night, picked up the house a couple times (it keeps getting messy - damn gremlins) listened to a dozen books read by mr 7, helped miss 10 with her homework in general & thoroghly pissed miss 16 off about ten times, just by giving my opinions on the dramas she has going on in her life- I guess I'm supposed to just listen, not express an opinion? I also wasted a lot of time playing mahjong solitaire, my new personal favorite game & definitely a time waster. But like many time wasters, video games, piano playing, embroidery & painting it puts me into a state of mind in which strange things come to me, I've been thinking about a guy I talked to at work on the phone who was from Woodstock Vermont. a place I've been multiple times, an old friend of mine had been there with annother friend of hers who was a native. the friend took me there to see the places her friend had shown her. Then I visited at least two other times on my own, once with a boyfriend & once with my grandmother. All the times I went there we stopped at a really lovely resturant which served probably the best french onion soup I've ever had to this date. I told this guy that I'd been there & asked if the resturant was still there & he said yes, it was & that they still had great french onion soup, that was the entire exchange but it was a moment which I still remember, (it was probably about 2 years ago now) I think about all kinds of weird things while I'm playing video games or doing the other things I listed. I belive I do quite a bit of healing mentaly doing things like that, I know when I am busy or read a lot during my days off & don't get much time to just play around I usualy feel very not-ready to go back to work at the end of my time off.
Mahjong holds an odd facination for me also because when I was a kid I recieved my mother's doll house & a large box of stuff to go with it, there was furniture, miniatures & dolls in the box but also a lot of little things, dominoes, dice of all sizes & colors, game pieces of many descriptions & even little statues of some of the presidents, about 3 inches tall with their name inscribed on the base (there were about 5, Madison, Polk, JQ Adams Taft & Taylor. I still remember the names!) & about 20 or 30 mahjong tiles, I didn't know that was what they were, my mother didn't seem to either, she had many of them wrapped in paper & decorated to look like cereal boxes, books & gifts in her doll house but didn't know what the tiles were for (or at least she told me she didn't) she plays mahjong solitare too though so I guess she knows now! she grew up with 3 younger brothers though, & always said that the doll house was not just used by her - her brothers all used it too.
Theres all kinds of stuff I'm supposed to be doing, my kids get state insurance, the state recently confirmed my ex's military status & now are pestering me to get my kids hooked up with the ex's military insurance. never mind that we've already had very bad dealings with the military insurance when he was in the navy back when we were only seperated, not actually divorced ( I went to counseling to determine if I wanted to stay married & to help me deal with him getting involved with a 19 year old girl right in our small town & moving in with her, he went awol from the navy while I was still in counseling & they ended up charging my doctor's office - where I was seeing the counselor- for visits they'd already paid for. It took me 4 years to pay that off- $20. here, $10. there. I don't want to be in that postition again & I hate to ask the doctor- same doctor for me & all 3 kids- I prefer a gp that way. To run that risk again.)
Today is a ladybug day too, This is one of those things I never saw in Massachusetts which I love about Virginia, it's 73 outside after 2 miserable, cold rainy days & ladybugs are swarming everwhere it's sunny at my house, on my porch & my back door. I took a picture but you can't really see them all hovering in the sun, Later I found they're swarming in at my back door- so here's a picture of that too.
I've been alternately working on a meme & looking at pictures of ghosts, I love scary stuff & there are tons of websites which have all kinds of stuff real & photo shopped available to look at, I bet they all get a ton of traffic at this time of year but I'm into that stuff all year long. I'm also looking for info on how to put some of the pictures I have on my hard drive on a disc, more at my ex's request than my own, he sent a ton of pictures to miss 10 & they're clogging up her email storage- he suggested we move them to a cd rom for storage, easy for him but I'm something of a computer novice, I know how to do what I do every day but I don't even know where to look to move them to a cd- maybe miss 16 does. Of course, I can't do anything until I actually invest in some cd roms!
Just got my Receptor on my satellite dish for my internet changed out, this guy just showed up at my door & said he was here to replace it free of charge! Up on the roof he climbed & changed it out & climbed back down, took all of 10 minutes, I didn't even have to reboot the computer! Maybe that will help with my intermitent signal problems, (I think it's a tree- the guy said a different tree than the one I was worried about though- annother reason to take down the pines behind my house! Now I just need a chain saw or someone motivated to do it- preferably not with cash) He was telling me that what we're hearing at my work is correct no new installs until December- I had the option to learn to troubleshoot that too. but there was no raise involved, more work, more to remember but no financial compensation? I don't think so- anyway I'd have had to change shifts too & I LOVE my shift!!! After all, I only work 2 days in a row, it's always a Monday or a Friday for me (Credit to my boss for those immortal words!) & there's not that many 4 day a week 10 hour a day shifts available. The only valid reasons to learn to troubleshoot wild blue would have been because I wanted to go on days 9 to 530, (I don't) or because I wanted to learn about it (I do- but not enough to change shifts)
I'm looking forward to halloween week because I took a paid day off for the monday of that week, just for something to do! I have 3 or 4 left & while I have to save one for Christmas & I'm taking one for my birthday I didn't have any other reasons to take any, I might not even need one for Christmas, Last year we were supposed to work & were swapped off, we worked the tuesday after Christmas & had Christmas day off. I'm hoping they'll do that again, it changes every year, I've worked 2 out of 5 Christmases, I don't like to do it (I've actually changed my schedule in other years in order to have the holiday off) Lately though, we've been swapped off so we didn't have to work that day, this year though, because my group had it off last year, I think I may need that paid day off. I've started setting an alarm on my phone to make myself get off the computer before my little ones get home from school on Wednesdays so I can really concentrate on them & my song is playing on the phone so it's time to sign off- I've been rather incoherent & rambling if I do say so myself!
thirteenth, I was amused by this & actually surprised that 1 other person said it was their lucky day, my family for the most part considers 13 their lucky number, (I actually prefer 68 for myself but as a family thing 13 ranks right up there) it all started with my mother's father, he was born June 13, he met my grandmother on July 13, they were married March 13, my Mother was born February 13 & he died on April 13, I know there are more, but those are the ones I'm able to remember off the top of my head, my 16 year old is especially into the whole 13 thing & on the door of her room in the trailer we 
y enthused to leave because 
now I have to confine it to getting from where I am to where I'm going- gas is going down though, paid under 2 bucks today for the first time in over 18 months! So I came home & worked out my bills & wrote a couple more checks for bills it turned out I could pay after all this week. & after studying the map to see where a couple of roads I noticed on the way home went to looking for shorter ways from Chrissies to my house. 
s malfunctioning) so we're tooling along, me bitching about if I break something on the car dad's going to have a fit & I glance over & theres two Rotweiler dogs standing next to their front door, 16 says 'ooh look at the dogs!' Next thing we know one of them has his paws on the door & his head in the window of the car barking & growling as if we had raw steaks in our laps! 16 brought the window up as fast as she could & I floored it. The dog was of the opinion that the entire road belonged to him & followed us all the way to the end where the road ended at annother little road. Needless to say Miss 16 was not enthused the next time I suggested we take a sightseeing ride! 
e going to watch a scary movie on dvd (haven't decided between Sleepy Hollow & From Hell- yes, I have a Johny Depp addiction- get over it!) but that's the plan for the evening. Miss 10 was absorbed in taking pictures to email to my mother (she's a novice in email & I'm trying to teach her to attatch pictures etc. Here she is in all her glory: 
herbs out of my garden yesterday & spent a bunch of time with mr 7 while doing that, he found some interesting plants & was playing with the seed pods from them while I was bundling the sprigs of herbs together to hang up to dry & telling me a very imaginative story about the pods being planets & a big piece of quartz I found in the garden & brought back to the house being an asteroid coming to crush the planets, I thought it was very imaginative, 16 upon hearing it said it sounded suspiciously like something he watched on tv- who knows, I was entertained & that's the fun part. Mr7 is so absorbed in tv & his own stuff, running around, building with his magnetix or his fisher price castle pieces, he rarely just sits & talks to me, even about imaginary storys & even with a lot of encouragement from me. Part of the situation is that miss 16 is often monopolizing the conversation, yesterday she was home sick though & we'd 
had about enough of each other by 5 pm which is when I was out pulling the herbs & getting them bundled up, the chives I cut up with scissors & froze, the others are drying on my nice hutch I put together this summer. Note the cat sleeping in the Bowl.
ers him all too well, 10 idolizes him however. 
might be able to get their grades up Miss 16 did great she got 3 as & a b, her highschool does things differently, they only take 4 classes per semester, she's got English, History, Drawing & Sculpture for her 4 classes until the end of January & so while english & history are fairly hard classes the 2 art classes seem like they'd be a walk in the park. She doesn't think so though & thinks I'm mean for saying they are easy classes. I've loved my kids from babyhood on & enjoyed every minute of it but I will be glad just the same when they're all old enough to just do their homework with out argument, help or anything from me. There are too many holes in my own - homeschooled- education for me to be much help in many circumstances. 
10 today I'm afraid I'm raising a pack of night owls like myself) both 10 & 7 helped me make them 7 likes to flip the pancakes & 10 likes mixing them & breaking the eggs especially. Then we began making our craft project a halloween banner with pieces of that foam sheeting stuff, I'd made one out of construction paper back when 7 was a baby & I didn't have any money for floam & actually had to have an argument with the ex to get the construction paper! We cut out ghosts, harlequin masks, jackolanterns & Witches hats & decorated them with mettalic pens, glitter & more foam. eventually they'll be strung on colored pipe clea
ners & hung on a wall, like this halloween one that 7 & 10 made in addition to the ones we were all making. They put theirs together for something to do while 16 & I were decorating more in depth, it gave them a feeling of getting something acomplished, they hate that I wouldn't put up the others because I want the glue to dry completley so I don't end up with parts of floam candy corns & pumpkins all over the floor under where I put the banner.
et took less than 15 minutes for me, inexperienced novice that I am, to finish- it looks lovely, the whole arm sticks up higher than the old one, every time I go out there & see it it looks funny to me, but I'll get used to it, I'm not unhappy with the quality, compared to the 50+ year old one which was there it's shiny, feels strong (though I fully expect mr 7 to NOT sit on this one- he's been listening to his sisters & I bitch about him breaking the old one since the problem began back in June & is heartily sick of the whole thing. 
eather is supposed to co-operate next week & be over 70 all week again (YAY) & we'll be watching a scary movie on video tonight, Skeleton Key, not sure if I'll like it, I probably will, I used to love slasher type movies of the friday the 13th variety but after my brother died I lost interest (we used to watch them together) Ann told me through IM it was more the suspense type of movie though so should be good. Last night I rented Walk the Line, on the advice of a co-worker (the same one I was discussing the sink with- he & I have worked on the same teams off & on for 4 years- since he started there, about a year after me) I'm a rock & roll fan all the way, can't stand country music (though I always had some respect for Johnny Cash) & neither can W, my co-worker, but he said he started watching it to be polite to his father who wanted to see it & ended up really liking it so he recommended it to me, I liked it too-- 16 was dubious but sat down & watched it & loved it- more so than I did actually. 
him sat on the kitchen sink's water faucet over the summer, I patched it up, taped it up for awhile but it's been getting worse & worse, the metal ripped through where it was stressed & the hole kept getting bigger, The whole faucet broke off last night Needless to say I was not pleased, why do these things happen on the week I don't get paid? Luckily that's what credit cards are for! So when I left work I headed to the stores to get a faucet, I'd been pricing faucets in Lowes & Home Depot for weeks & they were all pretty expensive, the cheapest was over 40 bucks. This morning though, while I was telling a co-worker about the faucet breaking right off last night he told me he'd had to replace the one in his new (to him) house this summer & said that Walmart had them for less than $30. got that, some socks (I'm a barefoot person & hate socks, but since I heat alternatively I have to have socks in cold weather, its the first truly cold day of the season today & I haven't bought socks in 2 years for myself so when I went to put some on this morning I found they all had holes in them!) & Some metallic paint pens for the kids & my craft project this weekend. Then I went home, feeling better for being away from the toxic atmosphere at my work (The really insulting part is that they make out like it's such a great job & that it pays SO well & is such fun) So the same co-worker who told me about getting a cheaper faucet at Walmart & my boss both told me that all I had to do was turn off the water, unhook the tubes which feed the water, unscrew the connectors under the sink, pull the old faucet out & put the new faucet in & tighten everything really well, but not too much. The instructions confirmed it, turn off the water, take out the old, put in the new.
No one mentioned that the old one has been there since 1959 & the hot water base's nut would be so corroded & rusted that I wouldn't be able to get it to budge, or that the water shut offs under the sink would be useless & so I'd have to turn off the water at the main source in the basement! I spent 4 hours pulling & tugging on an adjustable wrench (all I would need, I was assured) most of a can of wd40 (& man do I wish I had that stupid little straw that came with it!) & then a set of vice grips (always my tool of last resort & usualy it works) I did, with the vice grips get the cold water bolt loose but the hot water pipe is not moving an inch & I'm starting to chip pieces of metal off it, stripping the squared off parts of the nut which will make it even harder in the long run. I broke the hot water pipe under the sink off at the join, the cement holding it together was dried out & the whole thing just snapped, I have an aching back & I'm now intimately aquainted with the underside of my sink & all the stuff I keep in the adjoining cupboards, I've got mouse turds & wd40 in my hair & rust flakes in my eyes ears & cleavage & I can't take a shower because it's still in pieces & I can't turn the water back on. To her credit, miss 16, while not standing over me the whole time did come every time I called her with out complaint to bring me water to drink, the vice grips, the step stool to support my back, towels to lie on to support my back more, a rag & my socket set (none are deep enough) we went out & got pipe cement & a new joiner for the hot water pipe & they're back together nice & tight but since the shutoff valve under the sink does nothing I still can't turn the water back on. 16 has a friend who's a guy who she's going to ask to come by tommorow & see if he can loosen the nut, he works on cars she says so he should be able to get it loose (I don't doubt that, my ex was really good at that sort of thing & he worked on cars most of the time we were together) I don't actually need someone to do the whole job- just take that stupid nut off, I'm confident I can put the faucet in, if I could just get past that first step- taking the old one out! 
, but it could, if it can happen in Amish country it can happen here. Of course, if they keep daring Iran, Nuclear Winter will happen to us all. here, there, everywhere! yeah, I got up on the way wrong side of the bed this morning- I know. Doing 20thousand dishes this morning because 16 is sick & didn't do them yesterday didn't help either. at least I have a pretty view while I"m washing the dishes! 
, finaly cut miss 10's hair & since while I was cutting, 
t though, I'm usualy sorry after I go to a hairdressers & have a haircut myself, the last time I did was back in 2004 & it was so awful I haven't even had it cut since then, I've taken to trimming the ends myself to keep them healthy & that's it. I don't cut hair often, when I was pregnant with miss 10 I went to cosmetology school & then, since I was having her & keeping us all fed & housed was more important than getting my cosmetology liscence (we didn't have the fee to do the test) I never did anything with it, then, the next year in 1997 we moved down here to Virginia & I found out that while MA requires 1000 hours of school VA requires 1500 & we never had the money for me to go complete those 500 hours. I went to school for cosmetology because it seemed like a good job, reasonably well paying, different stuff all the time & becuase my Grandmother wanted me to, she's always said she'd like for me to be
able to do her hair & nails so she wouldn't need to go out & have it done if she didn't want to & we lived with her at that point so it seemed like a good idea. I found while in school that my personality is not really suited to this, that I'm not very outgoing & talkative & that it was rather stressful cutting peoples hair & being expected to make smalltalk. I did like the work, mixing colors, doing the hair cuts, rolling the perms, that part is pretty fun but after a few years of being out of it I didn't have any real call to go back to it (the student loan payments which I'm still paying off today - because while my ex & I were together we did not have the money to pay on them- are something of a rebuke though) anyway, it was fun doing 3 haircuts last night! 
(slept too late to call it breakfast) & have been messing around on here since then, Yesterday I went meme hunting so you can expect to see new ones, I'm going to attempt to keep it to 1 a week though becuase I consider them cheating in a way, though this stream of conciousness stuff isn't much better reading really. Well, the song that used to motivate me to go out & take a walk in the woods when I was a homeschooled teenager, reading in my bed all day every day, is playing from my computer telling me I need to get out & do something before my life is over like water under a bridge, I guess it's time to weed whack the front yard!
myself a fairly lenient parent, I am easygoing on room cleanliness, bedtimes & TV viewing. I do require my 16 year old's help in watching her siblings while I'm at work & on my work days I do ask her to feed them, keep the laundry moving from laundry basket, to washer to dryer (I fold it all, always) & do the dishes on my work days also. I pay her, I don't ask her to watch her sibs for free, I don't pay her a lot but at least it's something, most people I know who are oldest siblings (myself included) did not get paid for watching their younger brothers & sisters. 
ut going at all) Next thing I hear is that the driving friend is staying overnight, not a big deal, they're pretty quiet, I bitch if they're not & she's lost the privledge of having friends over for weeks & months previously because of not being quiet so she's pretty respectful about that, when the friend arrived I said, since it was quarter past 10 & I'm a little caffeineated & probably won't be able to fall asleep at 11 anyway, that she could stay out until 11 if she wanted. Well, as usual, nothings ever quite enough. 
minutes after she's left the house, she's calling me & asking me if she can stay out until midnight. No, she can't. She then procedes to argue with me about why am I always such a bitch, never let her do what she wants, etc, etc, etc, the usual 16 year old rant, I remember it from when I was 16 myself, (& 15, 17 & 18 too) 15 minutes later (early I might add- just what I want, more of her!) she stomps in the house, tries to kill me with her eyes & marches upstairs, 2 minutes later she's back in response to my question about where's the other girl? Oh, she's still staying the night, she'll be here at midnight when her own, regular curfew at home is! 
1993, who was on his way to work in Roanoke & never arrived, he was like, 50 or so at the time & neither he or the car turned up, they just assumed that he'd just left his live in girlfriend & gone somewhere else, though he didn't take anything but his wallet & lunch for work. They found him & his car on a hillside, in 2002, he had gone off the side of the road, over the cliff & into trees & no one, looking over the side of the cliff could see the car. from where the body was they said he survived the crash but was pretty messed up, he got out of the car but was unable to get to the road & died in the woods by the car, 9 years to find him! That's what it's like here though, I think of it all the time, driving to & from work, going places with the kids- down to Roanoke on the occasional shopping trip, going to Chrissies house, there are crosses & other handmade memorials on many many curves where people have lost their lives & I seriously don't want to be making a memorial to my kid on one of them. 
s & Far Away, by Led Zeppelin, walking in the rain with my walkman (it seemed, for awhile if it was raining & I was walking this song would come on the radio- of course, in Mass you just have to turn the radio on & spin the dial & most any song you can think of comes on some station or annother- they have SO many up there! Here in Virginia, there's 2 stations I like & 6 I tolerate, I have 10 presets & not enough radio stations to fill them here!) 
alibu with about 4 other people in the car, we were on our way back to where he lived to take him back & 'never see him again' & this song came on the radio, she turned it up & of course, no one went home never to be seen again! (man, were WE sappy!)
specially ironic since I was homeschooled & didn't actually go to school!) from the time I got up in the morning until I 
n here, there's nothing little about me!) The old guys are the worst. Old people in general seem to have a lot of trouble taking instruction from a woman & I actually had an old geezer say to me after I instructed to put his tv back on channel 3 & press the correct mode button on the remote- restoring his picture & his abillity to change chans- 'I hate it when a woman is smarter than me' & hung up on me. that happened within my first year there & I still remember it. 